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I’m basically going to do three things in this post: take a look at the sizable number of “lopsided” early-season contests; compare Massey Ratings projected game scores with early lines for various games of interest; and make a list of the best opening weekend (and pre-opening weekend) matchups.

Why am I doing this? Well, why not?

Lines are courtesy of an offshore site to be named later.

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There are 136 contests in Weeks 0 and 1 that feature at least one Division I team. Among them are 44 FBS vs. FBS games; of those, 11 are games between Power-5 conference teams, 9 are Group of 5 matchups, and 24 are games in which a P5 team is playing a G5 opponent.

There are also 48 FBS vs. FCS matchups, 26 FCS vs. FCS contests, and 18 games in which FCS teams face non-D1 opposition.

Of those 136 games, 36 have an early-line spread of 30 points or more.

The breakdown of those 36 matchups:

FBS vs. FBS: 6

FBS vs. FCS: 18

FCS vs. FCS: 4

FCS vs. non-D1: 8

It’s not great that more than 26% of the D-1 games which take place prior to and through the Labor Day weekend are projected to be that one-sided. Of course, it could be argued that this is the best time for these matchups, given that the general football-loving public is starved for live gridiron action of any kind, no matter the blowout potential.

As of August 1, the largest point spread for any D-1 game in this time period is the Florida A&M-Arkansas contest on August 31, a Thursday night affair in Little Rock. The Razorbacks are favored by 51.5 points. Two games have 51-point spreads, Bethune-Cookman vs. Miami (the homestanding Hurricanes are favored, just to state the obvious) and an all-FCS matchup, Mississippi Valley State vs. North Dakota State (with the host Bison expected to prevail).

The biggest road favorite is Washington, favored by 30.5 points at Rutgers. Stanford plays Rice at a neutral site (Sydney, Australia); the Cardinal are 31.5-point favorites.

The other four FBS vs. FBS matchups with a spread of 30+ points: UTEP-Oklahoma (44 points, the largest spread in an all-FBS game), Kent State-Clemson (38.5 points), Georgia Southern-Auburn (35 points), and Akron-Penn State (33 points). To the surprise of no one, the home teams are all favored.

The other three FCS vs. FCS games with 30+ point spreads: Butler-Illinois State (36 points), Valparaiso-Montana (34 points; apologies to Adam Amin), and Delaware State-Delaware (33 points). Again, home teams are the favorites.

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In the table below, I’ve included every FBS/FCS game in Week 0 (eight games played on August 26, and one on August 27), and a sampling of contests from Week 1 (August 31 through September 4). Just to reiterate, not every D-1 game from Week 1 is listed.

The first nine games in the table are from Week 0.

Favorite

Underdog

Line

Massey

Differential

Colorado State

Oregon State

3.5

34-31

0.5

BYU

Portland State

32.5

44-13

1.5

Florida A&M

Texas Southern

1.5

26-24

-0.5

Jacksonville State

Chattanooga

6.5

28-26

4.5

Cal Poly

Colgate

7

35-31

3

USF

San Jose State

20

41-31

10

Stanford

Rice

31.5

38-7

0.5

Sam Houston State

Richmond

6.5

38-34

2.5

Hawai’i

Massachusetts

1

33-31

-1

Wake Forest

Presbyterian

39

35-0

4

Toledo

Elon

37.5

43-7

1.5

Georgia State

Tennessee State

18

38-17

-3

Arkansas

Florida A&M

51.5

52-3

2.5

Mercer

Jacksonville

21

42-21

0

Samford

Kennesaw State

7.5

38-30

-0.5

Towson

Morgan State

28

35-7

0

Oklahoma State

Tulsa

17

42-33

8

Ohio State

Indiana

20.5

31-17

6.5

Army

Fordham

15.5

40-24

-0.5

Eastern Michigan

Charlotte

12.5

35-27

4.5

Navy

Florida Atlantic

13.5

42-28

-0.5

Colorado

Colorado State

7

35-28

0

Clemson

Kent State

38.5

44-3

-2.5

Texas

Maryland

16.5

34-27

9.5

Oklahoma

UTEP

44

49-13

8

North Carolina

California

12.5

42-32

2.5

Villanova

Lehigh

6.5

28-22

0.5

Pittsburgh

Youngstown State

14

40-24

-2

North Carolina State

South Carolina

5.5

28-17

-5.5

Notre Dame

Temple

15

28-24

11

Georgia

Appalachian State

14.5

21-18

11.5

Michigan

Florida

4

24-20

0

Virginia

William and Mary

19.5

33-14

0.5

North Dakota State

Mississippi Valley State

51

52-0

-1

Texas Tech

Eastern Washington

16.5

45-38

9.5

Mississippi State

Charleston Southern

18.5

38-21

1.5

The Citadel

Newberry

30

37-7

0

Wofford

Furman

13.5

26-14

1.5

Gardner-Webb

North Carolina A&T

7

28-21

0

Baylor

Liberty

30

42-14

2

East Tennessee State

Limestone

28.5

35-7

0.5

Auburn

Georgia Southern

35

34-13

14

Air Force

VMI

31.5

41-10

0.5

Alabama

Florida State

7.5

33-21

-4.5

LSU

BYU

13

21-7

-1

Southern

South Carolina State

2.5

27-24

-0.5

Virginia Tech

West Virginia

4

29-26

1

UCLA

Texas A&M

3.5

25-28

6.5

Tennessee

Georgia Tech

3.5

31-32

4.5

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Odds (hey, a pun!) and ends:

Not listed: James Madison-East Carolina, which does not have a line at present for some reason. However, Massey projects FCS defending champ JMU to win the game 38-31.

Western Carolina’s season opener at Hawai’i also does not have a line (at least, not one that I could find), possibly because the Rainbow Warriors play a game at Massachusetts the week before.

The same is true for Coastal Carolina, which opens by hosting the aforementioned Minutemen.

Two teams in the table that are favorites (UCLA and Tennessee) are projected to lose by the Massey Ratings.

Massey projects several games to be considerably closer than the current lines, notably Appalachian State-Georgia, Maryland-Texas, Eastern Washington-Texas Tech, Temple-Notre Dame, and Tulsa-Oklahoma State.

On the other hand, Massey likes North Carolina State and Alabama even more than the offshore folks do.

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On his college basketball ratings website, Ken Pomeroy has something called ‘FanMatch’, in which “games are rated for competitiveness and level of play with a lean towards higher-scoring games”. It is a somewhat whimsical way to rate the potential watchability of individual games on a given night.

I’m going to do the same thing here. However, I am purposely not going to rate Newberry-The Citadel, which from my vantage point is the most watchable game of the Labor Day weekend.

Below is a listing of the Week 0/1 games that I consider to be the twenty best in terms of quality/competitiveness. I’ve created a secret formula to produce these game ratings; it is called “Tingle Factor”, or TF. The higher the TF, the better.

I’m going to wait a few days before writing a post-mortem on The Citadel’s hoops season. It was a little bit of an odd year. Part of me is disappointed in the overall record (16-16, 9-9), but another part of me remembers that in the last two years the Bulldogs have won 24 SoCon games. In the six previous years, The Citadel had won 15. Total.

The past brings perspective.

Sometimes the past also helps when trying to evaluate bubble teams and seeding scenarios. The membership of the selection committee has changed over time, of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look back and see what the committee did when presented with certain situations.

— Let’s face it, the Pac-10 is wretched this season. California won the outright Pac-10 title. Is that good enough to guarantee the Bears an at-large bid if they don’t win the Pac-10 tourney?

History says yes. Exhibit A: Air Force, 2004. That season the Falcons were 22-5 during the regular season and won the Mountain West, but did almost nothing outside the league, managing to beat no one of consequence and losing games to UT-Pan American and Belmont. However, Air Force was 12-2 in league play and won the MWC outright by two games.

Air Force lost in the quarterfinals of the MWC tournament to Colorado State (by 12 points). Despite that, the Falcons still made the NCAAs. When asked about it, selection committee chairman Bob Bowlsby noted AFA’s less-than-stellar profile, but pointed out that the Falcons had been the regular-season champion of a top-10 league — and that achievement, in the opinion of the committee, merited Air Force’s inclusion.

I can’t say I disagree with that argument. (It’s certainly a better line of reasoning than the one Bowlsby’s successor as committee chair, Craig Littlepage, gave for the committee’s absurd decision to put Air Force in the field two years later. I still have no idea how that was justified.)

If winning a top-10 league is good enough, then Cal is safe. Admittedly, it’s not quite the same situation; Air Force won the MWC in 2004 by two games, while Cal edged Arizona State by just one game in the standings. Also, 12-2 is better than 13-5. Still, it’s a factor, as is the fact we’re talking about the Pac-10, and not one of the “mid-major” leagues (even if it isn’t as good as some of those leagues this season). Cal better not lose in the Pac-10 quarterfinals, though.

Incidentally, the same argument would presumably work in the favor of Utah State.

— Could last-second seeding adjustments actually happen?

This season there will be four conference title games played on Selection Sunday. The SEC, ACC, and Atlantic 10 title games will all tip at 1 pm ET, while the Big 10 final will start at 3:30 pm ET.

Let’s say that Duke and Ohio State are both in their respective conference finals. Would the committee wait until the end of the Big 10 game to finalize the seeding?

A lot of experts think that Ohio State has the best shot this side of Durham to collect the final 1-seed if they win the Big Ten tournament. Isn’t there a good chance though that they could get screwed by the schedule. The Big Ten final doesn’t start until 3:30 on Sunday and the ACC championship is at at 1:00 on Sunday. I know that the brackets take a long time to put together and the top seeds are placed first. If Duke lost in the Final and Ohio State won, is it possible that their fates would already be set before those games finish?

Joe Lunardi: It has happened this way in the past…More recently, however, the Committee has built multiple brackets accounting for the various Sunday scenarios. I would be disappointed in this group if they bailed on the process and didn’t finish the job (and I do not expect they will).

Lunardi may be right, but I think most of those “various Sunday scenarios” have revolved around teams playing on Sunday who were “auto bid or bust” types — like Mississippi State last season, or Georgia the year before that. I’m less than sure the committee is going to wait until the last moment (or prepare alternative brackets) for a question of one seeding line. Besides, should one game really be the difference between a team getting a 1 or a 2? What about the previous 30+ games?

This reminds me that in the past, there were occasionally conference tournaments still going on when the selections were announced. The Big West did this several times (this was back when UNLV was in the league). It invariably led to scenarios where the committee would have either/or bracket lines where a team would be in the field, unless the Big West had a surprise champ (in other words, if Vegas didn’t win).

This finally ended after the committee basically decided to hose any at-large hopeful out of the Big West until it quit playing its tourney so late. I recall Long Beach State being a bubble team that found out at halftime of the conference final that it had to win, or else.

Another league that at one time played its final after the pairings was the SWAC. Now, with the SWAC there wasn’t any at-large issues; it was just a question of what team would advance. However, it did pose a problem for the committee when trying to seed. These days the SWAC is an easy 16 (if not play-in game) pick, but back then it wasn’t always the case.

One year the committee puzzled just about everyone by deciding the winner of the SWAC title game would get a 13 seed. Nobody could believe the SWAC got so high a seed, especially because no one knew yet which team would be the league representative.

As it happened, Southern won the tournament final (televised immediately after the selection show), and the lucky 4 seed it drew as an opponent was ACC tournament champ Georgia Tech. Well, maybe not so lucky. Ben Jobe’s Jaguars shocked Bobby Cremins’ Yellow Jackets in the first round, 93-78.

— This season, there seem to be several “as long as they don’t lose to a really bad team, they should be okay” situations. It’s all right if Virginia Tech loses to Wake Forest in the ACC tournament, but if Miami upsets the Demon Deacons and then beats the Hokies, VT is in trouble. Washington might get an at-large bid if it loses to Cal in the Pac-10 final, but can’t afford to lose to another school — and it also would hurt the Huskies if their semifinal opponent wasn’t Arizona State.

As mentioned earlier, Cal can’t afford to lose in the Pac-10 quarters. Utah State needs to avoid losing until it plays Nevada in the WAC final, because Nevada is hosting the event, and a loss then would be more acceptable. However, Utah State couldn’t afford to lose to another school in the final, because then it would be a neutral-site loss. Also in the same position, perhaps, is UTEP, which could face host Tulsa in the C-USA semifinals.

Conversely, Mississippi needs to beat Tennessee in the SEC quarterfinals — but it does the Rebels no good at all if the Vols are upset by LSU in the first round. If that happened, then Mississippi would have to beat LSU and (presumably) Kentucky to get the needed big-win bounce. Mississippi State is expected to play Florida in a “play-out” game in the SEC quarters, but if Auburn upends the Gators, then Mississippi State would have to beat the Tigers and Vanderbilt (if form holds) to reach the final — and it still would not have a strong enough at-large case.

Then there is Illinois, which is a good example of a team that would probably be better off not playing a game at all. As it is, the Illini play Wisconsin for the second time in a week in the Big 10 quarterfinals — and for Illinois, it’s probably a win-you’re-in, lose-you’re-out situation.

— Memphis is starting to show up on some bubble watches. I’m trying to figure out how a team that has not won a game this season against a prospective tournament team (unless Oakland wins the Summit League tourney) is a viable at-large candidate.

— If the tournament would have been expanded to 96 teams for this season, we would be discussing the bubble candidacies of North Carolina, South Carolina, Arizona, and St. John’s. There is a good chance all four would have made the field of 96.

You’ve probably read or heard that Pac-10 basketball is not exactly top-of-the-line this season. I was looking through some stats this morning and was struck by just how poor the league has really been on the hardwood. It’s too much information for a Tweet, obviously, or even a regular post on a message board, so I figured I would stick it on the blog…

Last season the Pac-10 was 102-37 in non-conference play, a solid record of success that led to the conference receiving six bids to the NCAA tournament. This season, however, the Pac-10 is only 75-44 out of conference (through 1/10/10), which is a very mediocre record for a power league.

In fact, the Pac-10’s winning percentage out of league play is exceeded by both the Missouri Valley (71-32) and the Mountain West (79-38) and is roughly the same as that of the Atlantic 10 (113-70). Indeed, the Pac-10 is currently 8th in conference RPI, behind the MWC and A-10 and just ahead of the MVC.

Incidentally, when the SEC was widely (and justifiably) mocked last year for not having the usual number of NCAA-quality teams for a major conference, its non-league record was 131-51.

The Pac-10 was 16-23 last season against the other power leagues, not great but not embarrassing. This season, the league is 9-24, with none of those nine victories occurring in a “true” road game. Only one school in the conference, Arizona, has more than one win against BCS opponents.

The Wildcats have two, a neutral-site win over habitual Big XII cellar-dweller Colorado (by four points) and a home victory over ACC bottom-feeder North Carolina State (by two). Arizona has not been as successful against Mountain West squads, as it is 0-3 versus teams in that league, including a 17-point loss to San Diego State and a 30-point beatdown by BYU that was played at the McHale Center (as was a defeat at the hands of UNLV).

Losing at home by 30 is embarrassing for a proud program like Arizona, but it’s far from the worst loss this season by a Pac-10 club. That honor probably has to go to Oregon State, which last week lost 99-48 to Seattle – and that game was played in Corvallis. The Beavers have also lost to TAMU-Corpus Christi by 24 points and dropped a home game to Sacramento State. All three of those opponents, by the way, have losing records.

Oregon State followed up that hideous loss to Seattle by beating Oregon – in Eugene, no less. Oregon was 2-0 in the league following a road sweep of the Washington schools, but nobody should have been too shocked to see the Ducks blow their home opener in the league, since they had already lost at home to Montana (and have also lost to solid WCC outfits Portland and St. Mary’s, the latter setback yet another loss at McArthur Court).

Meanwhile, UCLA did the heretofore unthinkable, losing to Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State in the same season (neither Big West club currently has a winning record). Those two games were played in Anaheim, as was the Bruins’ 27-point loss to Portland.

Southern California may be the Pac-10 school that acquitted itself the best in non-conference play, having beaten Tennessee by 22 and winning a tournament in Hawaii (which included wins over St. Mary’s and UNLV). In keeping with the rest of its conference brethren, the Trojans did manage to lose at home to Loyola-Marymount.

Alas, the Trojans are now ineligible for postseason play thanks to the O.J. Mayo/Tim Floyd follies.

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With all that, the Pac-10 will struggle to be a three-bid league. It doesn’t help that the league appears on its way to not having a “tiered” group of contenders and non-contenders. Despite no team playing more than three games so far in league play, every school has at least one win and won loss in conference action. There could be a lot of 8-10, 9-9, 10-8 conference records, and that (along with Southern Cal’s self-imposed probation) could lead to the league’s worst-case scenario.

Could the Pac-10 only have one team advance to the NCAA Tournament? I doubt it, but it’s certainly not out of the question. What isn’t out of the question is that leagues like the Mountain West and Atlantic 10 (and possibly the Missouri Valley) will expect – not hope, but expect — to receive more NCAA tourney bids than the Pac-10, and deservedly so.

Note: when I refer to a basketball season as “2009” I mean the 2008-09 season; “2010” is the 2009-10 season, etc.

As I did last season, I waited for The Citadel to play a couple of games before writing a season preview. I like to see the team play a game or two just to get an idea of who is actually going to play, get minutes, that kind of thing (just glancing at the team roster isn’t enough; after all, Ed Conroy seems to have almost as many guys on his squad as the football team does).

Also, even though I love college hoops, it’s still a little early for basketball, at least for me — and that’s despite a poor year on the gridiron for The Citadel, part of the lamest college football season I can remember.

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The Bulldogs have now played two regular season games, a 64-45 victory over Kenyon College and a disappointing 61-60 loss against Charleston Southern, both taking place at McAlister Field House.

Before examining this season’s team, I would like to take a brief look back at last year’s edition of the basketball Bulldogs…

Prior to last season, I wrote a long (probably too long) post detailing the incredible lack of success the basketball program at The Citadel has had over its long history. I followed that up with a season preview which I titled “Room for Improvement”. I think it’s safe to say The Citadel improved last year. Just some examples:

2008: RPI of 334; 2009: RPI of 175

2008: 1 SoCon win; 2009: 15 SoCon wins (most ever by The Citadel)

2008: 6 wins overall (only 2 over D-1 opponents); 2009: 20 wins (only the second team in school history to win 20)

The Citadel also improved significantly in offensive effective FG%, offensive points per possession, rebound percentage, and defense against the three-pointer.

Why were the two seasons so different? Well, Demetrius Nelson, lost early in the 2008 season to injury, returned for a full season in 2009 and had an All-SoCon campaign; his presence in the post was a key factor in the offensive improvement, and also had an impact defensively. Also, the freshmen who had been thrown into the mix in 2008 (principally Cameron Wells, Zach Urbanus, and Austin Dahn) were stronger, smarter sophomores in 2009.

They were helped out by rotation newcomers John Brown (a redshirt freshman) and Cosmo Morabbi (a true freshman) and the return of Bryan Streeter. Those seven players got the bulk of the minutes for The Citadel in conference play, with some solid work also done on occasion by reserves Jonathan Brick, Matt Clark, Daniel Eykyn, and Tyrell McDowell.

This season, The Citadel will have to replace Nelson, Brown, Brick, and McDowell, with the contributions of Nelson and Brown obviously being the most difficult to replicate. Nelson averaged over 16 points per game, added 6.5 rebounds per contest, and was an efficient force on offense (shooting almost 60% from the field, and often camping out at the foul line, where he shot 77%).

Brown also averaged 6.5 boards per game, along with 1.2 steals per game, not to mention numerous deflections and countless hustle plays. His insertion into the starting lineup against Bethune-Cookman on January 3 (after only playing 14 minutes total to that point of the season) helped key the Bulldogs’ remarkable run of success in league play. His oncourt presence will be greatly missed.

—

To replace that production, The Citadel has to turn to new players and hope for improvement from returning team members. Nelson’s departure left a void in the paint that needed to be filled, and to fill it Ed Conroy is counting on 7-footer Joe Wolfinger, a graduate student who previously played at Washington.

Wolfinger, based on what I’ve seen of him so far, is more of a finesse player than Nelson was. He can shoot the three, but needs to be more physical to succeed in SoCon play, where he will face post men not as big as he is, but generally more athletic and just as strong. Against Charleston Southern he struggled, going 4-16 from the floor with three turnovers (although he did have nine rebounds).

He took a lot of shots against CSU, and even if he hadn’t had such a poor night shooting I would suggest that he shot too many and (more importantly) too quickly, at least in the framework of The Citadel’s offense, which relies on a moderate pace of play (fewer than 65 possessions per game last season) to create open looks and frustrate the opposition. I’m not going to crush him for that after one game, though; he has to get accustomed to playing with his new teammates, and he also has to get used to playing a lot of minutes after being mostly a bench player for the Huskies.

Tangent: he’s also going to have to get used to the officiating at this level of Division I, a good example of which was on display last night, as all three officials somehow missed a blatant traveling violation committed just before CSU’s game-winning basket. However, the Bulldogs should not have been in a position to be victimized by a bad (non) call in the first place.

Incorporating Wolfinger into the offense is going to take time. It may cost The Citadel a game or two in the early going (it could be argued that it was a key reason the Bulldogs lost to the Buccaneers). Then again, it took The Citadel a few games last year to figure things out (which is how a 20-win team could lose a home contest to 19-loss UC Davis by 18 points). As long as things are running smoothly by the time league play rolls around, it’s all good.

Admittedly, that gives the Bulldogs just two weeks, as Davidson comes to town on December 3…

The task of providing the same type of energy that Brown brought to the team will likely fall to several players, including the 6’6″ Streeter (who in many respects is a bigger version of Brown, all the way down to the horrific free throw shooting) and 6’5″ Harrison Dupont, the only one of the incoming freshmen to have played in both games so far for The Citadel.

Streeter averaged a little over 14 minutes per game for the Bulldogs last year; he will probably come close to doubling his time on the hardwood this season. He brings a lot of strength and grit to the table on both ends of the court, and is a good finisher, provided he isn’t fouled (36.4% from the line in ’09). His problems from the charity stripe can make him a liability in late-game situations, just another reason he needs to improve in that area.

Another player to watch in the “gets the dirty work done” department is Morabbi, who appears to be stronger this year (and definitely has more hair). Morabbi’s play in the latter stages of the contest nearly won the CSU game for the Bulldogs, both defensively and with his outside shooting (as he told Rafu Shimpo, “My specialty is shooting”).

Morabbi will occasionally freelance offensively. This is not necessarily a bad thing, even in Ed Conroy’s disciplined attack, as it keeps opponents honest. He can also make the corner 3, the thinking man’s favorite three-point shot. He had a tough night from the field against Kenyon, but was back in form in the CSU game.

Someone who The Citadel would like to see return to good shooting form is Dahn, who struggled from the field last season after enjoying a solid freshman campaign, falling from a 39.7% 3-point shooter to 32.7% beyond the arc. Now, 32.7% isn’t terrible, but most of Dahn’s shots are from 3-point land, so overall he shot just 32.6% from the field in 2009. The 6’4″ Dahn is a good defender and a mainstay in the rotation, but his value increases markedly if he can knock down shots.

Zach Urbanus is the epitome of dependability, always in the right place, usually making the right decision, and capable of making big shots. A comparison of his freshman and sophomore seasons shows just how consistent he is, as in both years he shot 44% from beyond the arc, had 3.3 rebounds per game, and 2.9 assists per contest. He did improve last season, as his overall shooting percentage increased substantially, and he also cut down on his turnovers.

Cameron Wells is getting some pre-season recognition as a potential MVP candidate in the Southern Conference. He certainly didn’t hurt his cause against CSU, scoring 23 points on 10-16 shooting and being an all-around defensive pest (including 3 steals).

The 6’1″ Wells is a vital cog in the offense. He can bring the ball up the court against pressure, penetrate into the lane and finish. Wells is a good free throw shooter, is able to make the occasional three-pointer, and is an outstanding perimeter defender. He’s a very smooth performer with a complete game, and he’s still getting better.

Other returners from last season who will see action include Clark, a slender 6’8″ junior forward who is a career 35% three-point shooter, and Eykyn, a 6’4″ native of Charleston who logged double-digit minutes in 11 games last season. While neither was a rotation regular, both had their moments last year and will be counted on again in 2010 (indeed, Clark has played at least 11 minutes in both games so far).

Some of the newcomers who may see the court include the well-regarded Dupont (a native of Oklahoma who has played 19 combined minutes in the first two games) and 6’8″ forward/center Mike Groselle, a Texan who impressed in a brief appearance against Kenyon. Also making his debut against Kenyon was 6’2″ guard Ben Cherry, a freshman from Charlotte.

I would guess that all three of those players will be contributors to The Citadel’s cause this season. I also wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of other players on the Bulldogs’ sizable roster eventually get a chance, as 16 different players participated in The Citadel’s exhibition game against Georgia Southwestern.

—

Whether Bulldog fans are ready for the season to begin, the Bulldog players and coaches have to be ready, because The Citadel is about to embark on a stretch where it will play nine games in eighteen days, including three on consecutive days this weekend. The Bulldogs will play in the Hispanic College Fund Challenge, hosted by Missouri State (which beat Auburn on Tuesday). The Citadel will also play Eastern Michigan and Maryland-Eastern Shore in that event.

The Bulldogs will then venture up to the “other” Charleston in a matchup with West Virginia, formerly of the Southern Conference and currently in the AP Top 10. After tangling with the Mountaineers, The Citadel will host an in-season tournament of its own at McAlister Field House, playing UVA-Wise (an NAIA school) and Central Connecticut State (of the Northeast Conference). That tournament honors the late Skip Prosser.

After that, The Citadel begins Southern Conference play, with the aforementioned game against Davidson followed two days later by a game against Georgia Southern. The last game of the “nine in eighteen” run is arguably the biggest, as The Citadel will host Tom Izzo and his Michigan State Spartans on December 7.

MSU is currently ranked #2 in the nation and, of course, played in last season’s NCAA title game, losing to North Carolina. It will be the second year in a row a Big 10 school has come to McAlister, although I suspect there will be more “juice” in the arena than there was for Iowa last year.

That’s quite a way to start a season. It will be a challenge for the players and coaches (heck, it’s going to be a challenge for me just to keep up with it). After the fun of last year’s campaign, I just hope that this year The Citadel doesn’t revert back to its old, lots-of-losing ways. I don’t think it will, though, as (barring injury) the core of the team is too solid for that to happen.

I’m posting this prior to the Portland-St. Mary’s game, for the record…

This is my first projection to include seeding and placement, and it’s possible there is an error or two mixed in, because the first go-round is always the toughest. At any rate, here is how I see the NCAA tournament as of right now (projected automatic bids in all-caps):

As of now, North Carolina has the top overall seed in my projection, based on finishing first in the ACC, while none of the other three #1 seeds won their respective conference titles. Louisville will be probably be battling Pitt and UConn for two available #1 seeds in the Big East tournament. I think Memphis has a shot at a #1 if it wins the C-USA tournament and Oklahoma bows out early in the Big XII tourney.

The brackets are set up as follows: South vs. West, East vs. Midwest

I had a lot of trouble deciding how the committee would place teams. I think they are going to want to have at least one “draw” in the Portland and Boise sub-regionals, so putting Washington/UCLA in those sites seemed logical, and Gonzaga will probably be in one of them as well. It’s a bit of a tough draw for Missouri in particular, but after the first round nobody is protected. I don’t like putting Villanova in Philly — that struck me as not being in the spirit of things — but if the Wildcats get a 3 seed or better I can see it happening.

Every team on seed lines 8 and up is safe for the tournament, and the 9 seeds are all in decent shape. The bubble action starts on line 10 and goes through line 12, with some automatic bids interspersed here and there.

Last six in: South Carolina (last in), Penn State, Providence, New Mexico, Michigan, St. Mary’s

South Carolina, to be perfectly honest, is a bit of a placeholder; I have the Gamecocks in the field based on my belief that at least three SEC teams will be in the tournament, no matter what happens. As of right now, I give South Carolina the edge over Florida and Auburn for the third bid from that decidedly mediocre league. It is possible for the SEC to get four bids, depending on how things shake out in that league’s tourney, as well as tournaments across the country.

At this point Siena and Utah State would be advised to win their respective conference tournaments. I don’t see either grabbing an at-large bid if it needs one.

St. Mary’s is the toughest call in terms of evaluation/figuring out what the committee will do. If the Gaels lose to Gonzaga in the WCC final, then I think they will get an at-large bid. Otherwise, I don’t see it happening.

Every season about this time I start to take a look at how the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is shaping up, and begin to project the bracket, just like numerous other lost souls, some of whom get paid to do so. It’s probably a pointless exercise, because A) it’s still too early, and B) it’s not really possible to replicate the selection committee. Kyle Whelliston at The Mid-Majority made this point in a chat about ten days ago, and he’s absolutely right. As he says, individual projecting “involves one person trying to simulate the groupthink brain processes of ten people”.

Even if you took a bunch of projections and combined them, it’s not quite the same thing, because it doesn’t account for the interaction between people sitting together in one room and developing a consensus. It also doesn’t account for the nuts and bolts of the process, which involves a lot of voting on teams, grouping of teams, etc.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to guess at what the brackets might look like on Selection Sunday, though…

Before I get into specifics for this year’s tournament, I want to address the notion that various teams are “locks” for the tournament. To me, a “lock” is a team that could lose every game the rest of the season and still make the NCAAs. In other words, there aren’t a lot of locks at this point. Nothing is more ridiculous than to assert a team is a lock in your brackets, then to take lock status away from that team and put it back in the mix of teams competing for at-large berths, all because it lost a game or two.

ESPN.com did just that this past week with Butler, which had been a “lock” in that site’s version of “Bubble Watch” for about a month. Once Butler dropped games to Loyola of Chicago and UW-Milwaukee, though, the Bulldogs were “de-locked”. Butler is now again a “lock” on ESPN.com after beating Davidson on Saturday. Truthfully, Butler won’t be a lock until (or if) it wins the Horizon League tournament.

On this site, you won’t see any team called a lock unless it really is one. Sipping on some Paul Masson somewhere in the great beyond, I think Orson Welles approves of this notion.

I’m not going to play the assign-a-team-a-regional game today. I’m going to simply break down the prospective field by groups of eight:

I don’t think the committee is going to penalize Oklahoma too much for losing a close game at Texas in which Blake Griffin was a non-factor due to injury. As of right now, though, Pittsburgh almost has to be the number 1 overall seed.

I think Washington will grab a top-16 seed if it wins the Pac-10 regular season title outright. It would also help the selection committee when assigning teams to regionals. There is a distinct lack of western options when it comes to highly seeded teams.

I don’t know what the committee will do with Utah or LSU in terms of seeding. I know LSU has a gaudy SEC record, but this season that’s not the most impressive of accomplishments. Utah has done similar work in the Mountain West — and of course, beat LSU earlier this season by 30 points. I think LSU is a 6 seed-type, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tigers wind up with a 4.

Distinguishing between the bubblicious SEC teams is not easy. Kentucky has swept Tennessee and may deserve to be in this group; it can move to this level by winning at South Carolina or at Florida (the Wildcats also have a home game against LSU, so it’s all in front of them). The Vols played a much tougher non-conference schedule than its fellow SEC East contenders and will presumably be rewarded for it. Florida has 21 wins, but the average RPI of the teams it has beaten is 176. Of course, South Carolina’s average RPI victory is 179, while Kentucky’s is 169. LSU? 173. (Tennessee’s is 125.)

You get the idea. This is not a banner season for the SEC. This is highlighted by Gonzaga’s average RPI win being 155, better than any of the SEC contenders save Tennessee, despite the Bulldogs playing in the WCC (and having also played a non-conference game against Texas Southern of the SWAC). Comparing the SEC numbers with those of standard-bearers for the Big East and ACC is even more instructive. Pittsburgh has beaten teams with an average RPI of 100; North Carolina’s number is 96. Honestly, I think the SEC teams could each be a group below where I’ve listed them.

I like UNLV’s resume a little more than some people. Vegas has some tough road losses to overcome (Colorado State, Wyoming, TCU), but also has road wins over Louisville and BYU (the latter completing a sweep). Minnesota also has a win over Louisville, but needs to win a couple more games down the stretch.

I don’t think Davidson has enough juice to warrant an at-large bid, no matter how much Stephen Curry’s injury is taken into consideration by the selection committee. Creighton is making a strong push late in the season, and has a win against Dayton, so the Blue Jays may have a chance at an at-large, if needed. Siena played a great schedule, but didn’t beat anyone on it. None of the other sixteen conferences listed has a serious at-large candidate.

Starting around Group 3, you have a lot of teams that haven’t really separated themselves from the field. It would be surprising, but not completely shocking, for a team from Group 3 to ultimately miss the tournament. You could make good arguments against all the teams in Groups 5 and 6. Utah State is in a bit of a tenuous position, because one loss could be enough to end its at-large chances, and of course to need an at-large bid in the first place it would have to lose at least one game (in its conference tournament). Maryland jumped into the prospective field with its overtime win over North Carolina, giving it two wins over top-6 RPI teams. The Terps still have work to do. Of course, you could say that about a lot of teams.

A few other notes:

While I’m not overly impressed with Butler’s profile, the Bulldogs have eleven road wins this season — not eleven road/neutral wins, mind you, but eleven “true” road wins. That currently leads the nation, and is the kind of thing that can differentiate a team (in other words, it’s easier for the committee to justify its selection/seeding).

Right now I have only four Big XII schools in the tournament in my projections. I suspect when the dust settles that the Big XII will wind up with five teams in the tourney, but some team has to make a move. The best candidate to do so is probably Oklahoma State, which has the computer numbers but not the wins.

Tennessee and Georgetown rank 1-2 in strength of schedule (as of today). The Volunteers have a slightly better record, and have performed a little better over the last twelve games (6-6 versus 4-8). The Hoyas still have an opportunity to make the field, despite all their losses, but they have to start winning games. Louisville comes to town on Monday night.

Speaking of big games for at-large consideration, Temple plays at Dayton on Saturday. It’s possible that the Owls need to win that game to garner at-large consideration.

UAB has its shot to make a statement on Thursday night, at home against Memphis. Right now the Blazers’ resume has a gift-wrapped road win over Arizona and very little else.

I think the SWAC champ can be pencilled in for the play-in game, which is not exactly news, but that league is taking being the lowest-rated conference to a new level; no team has an RPI better than 206, and seven of the ten teams in the conference have RPIs of 294 or worse. Against Division I competition, the SWAC is 5-96.

St. Mary’s is probably an NCAA-caliber team, but I don’t know what the selection committee will think of the Gaels, given both the injury status of Patty Mills and the fact St. Mary’s hasn’t really beaten any team of consequence other than Utah State. My guess is that the Gaels need to win the WCC tourney.

Memphis has to be a serious candidate for a 1 seed; among other things, the Tigers have the longest current winning streak in the country, at 18 games. The next longest current winning streak is 10, by none other than…The Citadel (which, alas, is not a candidate for an at-large bid).

A few observations as I look over my TV listings chart for the upcoming college football weekend:

— The Ivy League will have one conference game not televised this week (Princeton-Cornell). The Big XII will have two games not televised this week. One of those games, MIssouri-Baylor, features the 14th-ranked team in the BCS facing a team led by an outstanding young quarterback (Robert Griffin). It’s sure to be a wild shootout, like almost every other Big XII game this season, but it won’t be on TV. The other game, Colorado-Texas A&M, isn’t much of a game, but in this day and age a major conference should have every one of its conference games on TV. The Big XII’s current contract with Fox runs through 2011 and its ABC deal lasts through 2015, so I’m not sure things are going to change much for the next couple of years.

— I just realized the Southern Conference will also have two games not televised this week. Clearly, the SoCon needs a better TV deal. Having a deal comparable to the Big XII’s won’t cut it…

— The Pac-10 doesn’t have the greatest TV deal in the world either, but this week, it’s just as well. Stanford-Washington State is not on TV, to the relief of Cougar fans everywhere. Winless and soon to be Willingham-less Washington isn’t so lucky, having to travel to L.A. to play Southern Cal in FSN’s game of the week. ABC snagged the solid Oregon-Cal matchup, so the only other game Fox had available was Arizona State-Oregon State, which will be its late-night game, so as not to offend east coast viewers.

— ESPN made Andre Ware’s travel plans much easier by assigning him Northwestern-Minnesota (with Dave Pasch). Ware is also the radio analyst for the NFL’s Houston Texans, which are playing the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. If he wanted, he could sleep in the MetroDome, since both games will be played there.

I can’t remember exactly what he said, but during last week’s Texas Tech demolition of Kansas, Ware said something to the effect that his coaches at Houston, Jack Pardee and John Jenkins, didn’t try to run up the score when he was in the game. I remember Houston beating SMU 95-21 the year Ware won the Heisman (admittedly, he didn’t play in the second half). Jenkins, of course, was the coach when David Klingler threw 11 TDs in a game (against I-AA Eastern Washington). Maybe they didn’t let Andre run up the score, but to be honest, that’s probably a subject he should avoid.

— I am assuming we are in for another fabulous “Interactive Tuesday” broadcast for South Florida-Cincinnati on Tuesday night. Rece Davis and Lou Holtz (but not Mark May for some reason) call that one, with the current king of blowout fodder, Rob Stone, roaming the sidelines. Personally, I don’t think Interactive Tuesday is the same without having Todd Harris doing play-by-play. It’s much better when it’s a complete train wreck, as opposed to just a minor derailment.

— The best pre-Saturday game is without question an FCS game, the matchup between #2 Appalachian State and #3 Wofford, on ESPN2 Friday night.

— Florida vs. Georgia. Florida State vs. Georgia Tech. Big games in their respective conferences, a state of Florida vs. state of Georgia matchup in both cases, and naturally taking place at the same time.

— Pam Ward will be calling a Michigan State game for the fourth time this season. Ray Bentley has actually called five Michigan State games, as Pam had WNBA duty for one game (Clay Matvick filled in for that one). My sympathies to fans of the Spartans. Hey, at least you’re on national TV every week.

— The most intriguing thing about Michigan-Purdue this week is what hair color Charissa “Not the porn actress” Thompson will be sporting.